Digital technologies are a central part of everyday research at DLR. Digitalisation not only enables more efficient processes, but also new forms of collaboration and communication. This is particularly true for design and production processes, which can be optimised by using digital methods and tools. Digital platforms connect skills, provide interfaces to high-performance computing and integrate development work.
The Institute of Software Technology provides the software expertise for working with digital data at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). With an eye on the potential of digitalisation, we develop platforms that connect different research disciplines at DLR. In this way, skills can be bundled, expertise shared and technical offerings implemented via digital platforms. Digital platforms provide low-threshold access to powerful computer clusters, high-performance computers or quantum computers. In addition, specialist institutes can use the platforms to offer their special software solutions to the whole of DLR. Our research contributes to the effective and efficient use of the developed platforms.
Examples of digital platforms developed by the Institute of Software Technology:
Geometry modelling and computer-aided design (CAD) play an important role in many of the research areas at DLR, for example in the design of components or digital twins in aerospace. As different as the applications are, the challenges in geometry modelling are often similar. The Institute of Software Technology is involved in the paraDiGMS project, which brings together and develops the geometry modelling expertise of 13 DLR institutes. The aim is to create a comprehensive open source tool landscape that enables joint, agile and requirements-driven development of methods for geometry modelling. With a user-friendly digital platform, our institute provides researchers inside and outside DLR with a tool to jointly develop complex interdisciplinary models in short development cycles.
Digital platforms also play a central role in the development of applications for quantum computers at DLR. Our institute is leading the development of a platform that opens up DLR's quantum computers with access software, a compiler for quantum circuits and a database of example applications. The aim of the CLIQUE project is to provide DLR institutes and facilities from all research areas with low-threshold access to the DLR quantum computers of the near future. The software platform coordinates the distributed execution of quantum algorithms on the users' classical computers, the DLR HPC systems and the DLR quantum computers.
The VisPloreproject is developing a data analysis and visualisation platform. The aim is to establish a distributed software infrastructure within DLR that enables the efficient analysis of large scientific data sets using interactive visualisation methods. On the one hand, the quality of the data sets will be significantly improved during their generation. On the other hand, the management of data sets will be improved through distributed storage and transparent access. Finally, the use of these data resources will be enabled through local, interactive visualisation and connection to the high-performance infrastructure.
The project CLIQUE is providing the technical infrastructure for accessing the DLR QCI quantum computers
In the CLIQUE project, we are developing an application database of algorithms that are optimized for execution on the DLR quantum computers.
VisPlore as a data analysis and visualisation platform
The example shows a visualisation and analysis of rising hot matter stagnating in the different layers of the Earth's mantle. The visualisation was created using the CosmoScout VR software.
